


Into The Void

by SharpestRose



Category: Firefly, The Social Network (2010)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-06-29
Updated: 2011-06-29
Packaged: 2017-10-20 20:24:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,682
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/216768
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SharpestRose/pseuds/SharpestRose
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Henley is a Firefly class ship and Dustin Moskowitz is her pilot.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Into The Void

"Curse your sudden but inevitable betrayal!"

Henley is a Firefly class ship and Dustin Moskowitz is her pilot. Right now they're docked on Persephone, however, so he's not currently engaged in the business of piloting. Instead he is playing with toy dinosaurs, which is a perfectly acceptable pastime and one Dustin feels no shame about. So when Chris is clearly laughing at him behind that charming smile, Dustin glares.

"Don't glare at me. The 'verse will turn and your face will stay like that."

"Is that what happened to you?"

Chris clutches at his heart. "You wound me. Truly."

Dustin shoves the toys off the console. "How'd finding passengers go?"

"We've got one taker. Looks like he's never been a day out of the core."

"Then I bestow congratulations upon you," Dustin replies gravely, holding up a hand for a ceremonial high-five. "You're our secret weapon, Christopher. No question about it."

Chris smiles but shakes his head. "Don't congratulate me yet. You know how the others get sometimes when we have to deal with that sort."

Dustin rolls his eyes. "Let's just hope that somehow, miraculously, the Alliance doesn't come up in conversation, then. We might manage a whole day or two of peace and quiet."

\--

See, the thing is, Dustin and Chris are unlikely additions to Henley's crew. They aren't shy about admitting to their (increasingly distant) Browncoat past, or of getting into heated arguments on the subject.

Cameron Winklevoss and Tyler Winklevoss are veterans of the same war, and just as bitter and scarred by the experience. Trouble is, they were fighting on the other side of the battlefield to Dustin and Chris and their units.

But wars are never clean, even for the victors -- perhaps especially not for the victors. Their Commander, Summers, threw them under too many times when a scapegoat was needed. There were too many stinging, messy failures -- the Battle of Henley Royal was the worst of them, and Dustin's never understood why the twins named their boat after such a painful defeat. Nobody got away from Henley without a little bit of themselves getting left behind in the process and a bit of pain picked up. Why carry more of it than necessary?

But that's not Dustin's business, and he's learned better than to ask about it. Cameron and Tyler keep Dustin and Chris on as the pilot and the negotiator because they're good at what they do, and the twins respect that. But Dustin knows how strained the arrangement is.

Still, it works, and Divya's a fair and clever captain. They make enough to keep flying, and that's all they want in the end. A little bit of freedom. A way to stay below the network that connects the lives of most under the Alliance.

\--

The passenger, Eduardo, makes light and pleasant conversation at dinner. He asks about the running of the ship, and compliments them all on how well it seems to function. He talks a little about his work as an economics professor at one of the larger universities, and makes small flattered protests when Chris remarks how young he is for someone in a position like that.

He's clean-cut and polite and cultured, and makes about as much sense on a cargo-working Firefly as the Winklevoss twins and Divya do. Dustin tries not to shudder at the thought that the newcomer's secrets might be as dark as Cameron and Tyler's.

The only cargo Eduardo is transporting with him out to Whitefall is a single large crate, the kind that carries machine parts or cryo equipment.

Dustin knows that it's a very bad idea to go prying into their paying passenger's business like this. That's why he doesn't tell Chris what he's doing before he does it.

The top of the crate lifts off easily, held down by only a few nails. Like it was packaged hurriedly, by someone who knew they'd want to be able to look inside often. Yep, cryo chamber. Dustin's still got a good eye for the shape of things.

"What are you doing?"

Dustin spins on his heel. Eduardo's standing there, still in the shirtsleeves and dark pants he was wearing at dinner. His voice is tired and angry, as is his expression. He's holding a mug of the reconstituted mushroom soup they all choked down earlier.

"I cannot think of a good enough alibi," Dustin admits after a second of thinking about it. "So I'm going to say that it's probably exactly what it looks like, I shouldn't have, I'm so sorry, and please please don't tell the Captain or ask for your money back because I'll be fired and I like this ship better than most I've worked on so I'd rather not have to leave it."

Eduardo just sighs and shakes his head. "Maybe it's better. That you know. It'd come out eventually. And maybe... Chris, the man I booked passage with. He said that the crew has little love for the Alliance?"

"It's more complicated than that," Dustin answers. "But yes, basically. You won't get turned over to them, no matter what's in there. Of course, that doesn't mean we won't act as we feel the situation deserves -- if you're transporting organs, you won't find any friends in this crew, for example. It just won't ever be the Alliance you're up against."

"It's not organs." Eduardo punches a long code of numbers into the release mechanism's keypad, then steps back as the system starts to release the seal on the chamber.

The cover slides back and inside is a boy.

A young man, really -- probably not any younger than Eduardo or Dustin or the rest of the crew, who all still look fresh-faced despite the weary weight of the things they've seen. But curled up there, among the wisps of freezing agent, he looks like a boy. Dressed in an oversized grey shirt with a hood and loose black pants, his posture is tense and his face frowns even in the deep coma-sleep of the freeze.

Eduardo leans over the edge of the chamber and shakes the boy's shoulder gently. "Mark," he says, his voice soft. "Wake up. You have to eat."

The boy sits up with a start, bright eyes darting from Eduardo to Dustin. He flinches back from the light touch at his shoulder as if it's stung him. Eduardo just holds out the cup.

"It's soup, Mark. It's warm."

Expression unreadable, Mark takes the offered food and sips it slowly. He rocks back and forth, just a little, seemingly calming himself with the movement.

"If you'd let me wire in, we wouldn't be in this mess," he says to Eduardo in a flat voice. "I could find us somewhere safer than a cargo hold to hide out, that's for certain."

"How did you... never mind, of course you know it's a cargo hold," Eduardo mutters. "And I promised you when I got you out of there that I would... that you were safe. I will never, _ever_ make you wire in."

"It isn't making me if I volunteer," Mark says, something old and hateful echoing in his tone behind the flatness. "That's what Doctor Parker always said. I signed up for it. The consent was unconditional."

The fury that flashes for a moment across Eduardo's face is as chilling as any hatred that Dustin saw in the war. But it passes as quickly as it arrived, and the only expression that Eduardo wears as he looks at Mark is concern and love.

"We'll fight about this later. Finish your soup and go back to sleep."

"It's not sleep. It's not anything," Mark retorts, but swallows obediently.

"I am very smart," Eduardo says, addressing Dustin now. "I can make investments based on trends in the weather and have them pay off a hundred times over. I have created algorithms for use by top level scientists. I don't say all that to sound like I'm big-noting myself, but rather to explain exactly what I mean when I say that from the day I first met him, Mark has exceeded me in every field by an almost unimaginable margin."

Eduardo pauses and looks down at himself, giving Mark a crooked and half-secret smile. A shared joke. "Well, every field but dress sense, perhaps."

Mark just makes a derisive noise and drinks more soup. There's more color in his face now, but the curls of his hair are still ice-stiff.

"He is a genius. And..."

"And they've been using my brain as a pin-cushion in a lab. Or were, until Eduardo defied his father and managed to track me down. Now I'm a fugitive, attempting to sidestep the worst of the trauma inflicted by staying in cryo except when Eduardo insists I eat to get my strength up. We're now in the hold of a... Firefly class?" Dustin nods, but Mark's already gone on talking. "A Firefly class ship, on the run, and appear to have been discovered by yourself."

"Dustin. I'm the pilot," Dustin says. He holds out a hand, which Mark doesn't shake.

"Are you going to turn us in? I'm sure I'm worth a considerable amount of money."

Dustin feels ill. "No! No."

"We might have lied to you about everything. You've got no reason to believe we'd be honest about our origins," Mark points out. Eduardo manages, against the odds, to look even more tired.

"That's enough soup, Mark. Lie down again."

Mark hands the cup back and curls on his side, apparently unmoved by his situation, but Dustin can see the tremble in his shoulders. Eduardo punches in the code, and the system begins to restart itself.

"I'm sorry," Eduardo says to Dustin. "About him. He's... he's under a lot of stress."

Dustin doesn't know what's going to happen next. He doesn't know if he should tell Chris, or Divya, or the twins, or even if Mark is right and the whole story is a lie. He doesn't know what the next step should be.

But all he says, with a lopsided smile at Eduardo, is,

"Aren't we all."


End file.
